Microsoft Research is applying artificial intelligence to a most unlikely situation. The day may be coming that you never again have to twiddle your thumbs waiting for the elevator. A new learning system developed by the company is capable of controlling an elevator and knowing where you need to go based on your history and the time of day.

Getting the smart elevators up and running required Microsoft to spend three months just letting the system watch the comings and goings of people. It learned how people behave when they’re making for the elevators, as well as the timing and environmental factors that can affect elevator usage. After the learning period, the system was allowed to control the elevators, and it appears there were no fatalities — a good first step. The elevator talk starts at 2:50 in the video below.

Microsoft’s smart elevator was designed to be blind to individual faces. All its learning algorithms, which were reportedly able to successfully manage elevators, worked by gauging people’s intentions in a general way. It didn’t know a specific person was walking up to the elevator, just that someone was.

In the future, a smart elevator could plug into your life via a network of data and wearable sensors. You wouldn’t need to press a button or even wait for the elevator to be available. If your schedule said you had a meeting on the 5th floor at 2PM, there would be an elevator waiting to take you there without a single button being pressed. It could also shift elevators around in a more general way to plan for heavier usage, like people leaving for lunch and returning a bit later.

Sometimes Microsoft Research contributes to real products, but for now this is just a proof of concept. Perhaps someday the predictive assistant app on your phone will be calling elevators for you.